Posted on 11/17/2005 11:02:44 AM PST by JZelle
Albert Pujols, the Lou Gehrig of our times, picked up his first Most Valuable Player Award the other day. But if baseball had begun testing for drugs when other sports did, it might well have been Pujols' third MVP -- in just five major league seasons. And then we'd be saying, rightly, "This guy might be the best player to come along in 50 years." Pujols had the misfortune of breaking in around the time Barry Bonds developed a taste for "flaxseed oil." Thus, he finished second to Bonds in the '02 and '03 National League voting instead of, perhaps, first. The same fate befell Mike Piazza, who was runner-up to admitted steroid user Ken Caminiti in the '96 NL balloting. But for Piazza, the ramifications were worse: He's never won an MVP -- and likely never will.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
How about this stat. In Pujols's five seasons he has had 590,590,591,592 and 591 at bats. The walk total changes, games change too but the AB's are uncanny.
That the biggest statistical oddity I have ever seen.
He is definitely one of the best. I hope he is clean.
I don't understand why Jesse Jackson hasn't charged racism as the reason why Bonds didn't win the MVP award again this year.
I can't stand Barry Bonds.
The other day I watched a show on ESPN Classics about the 1968 World Series between St. Louis and Detroit. Bob Gibson pitched a shutout in Game #1, and broke Sandy Koufax's World Series single game strikeout record.
My baseball fantasy is that McGuire, Sosa, and Bonds (in their prime, but without steroids) have to face Gibson, Koufax, and Drysdale (in their prime), pitching from the pre-1969 15" mound. I think it would be a humbling experience for the batters.
I agree 100%!!
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